


Twenty Years Gone

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Peg, honey, it's not like that."  Or maybe it is.  BJ, the truth, and the layering of lies over decades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_wordbutler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/gifts).



> My very first fic over 10k. A few anachronisms in terms of technology that I didn't catch.

Peg’s mouth is a grim line after she hears the news. She stands up and walks away, hands pushing her hair from her face, flat shoes clacking against the kitchen linoleum as she heads across it for the bookshelf in the living room. BJ stays where he is, though he knows where she’s going. Dr. Spock has plenty to say on teething and toys and the pulling of pigtails, but BJ knows without having to look that there is nothing in there about your oldest girl coming home and announcing that she loves other girls.

“Daddy?” Erin asks, teeth pressed against her lip after the question.

BJ looks at her. She has her mother’s eyes and his nose, and her hair is a mix between the two. She sits at the kitchen table in slightly scruffy jeans and a bright red halter top. She wears the same dirty shoes she wore at Christmas, when she came home from grad school, laundry bag over one shoulder, backpack over the other. She is, and always has been BJ’s favorite. Not that he’s ever said that out loud. The boys are wonderful, two strapping lads with brains and brawn and energy and life. But Erin is his little girl, his baby doll, the only one of the children whom he didn’t see born. She is so very special in so many ways.

“You’re happy, right?” He asks with tears in his throat that he swallows around.

“I am.”

“Well, there you go.” He hugs her just as tightly as she hugs him.

“What about Mom?” whispered into his ear.

“Give her a little time,” BJ says. He doesn’t try to explain Peg. Peg will be fine. Peg just needs a period of adjustment.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

God, but he loves her more than anything in the world.

*

Later, as they prepare for bed, Peg faces away to ask her questions. “Do you think-“ She stops talking and BJ can picture the way her jaw is clenching and her lips are pressed.

“She’s happy, honey.”

“I know, and that’s fine, but…” Peg turns around, the lace edge on her nightgown swirling. “Are you?”

BJ looks up from undoing his belt, crinkles his eyebrows at the question. “Why wouldn’t I be?” He has a home, a wife, three brilliant children, and a steady job at a solid family practice. He sees the way Peg rubs at her hands, fingers of her left hand curling around the fingers on her right, dragging straight down. In the silence of the bedroom the cracking of her knuckles is very loud. A weight falls into BJ’s stomach. He knows his wife much too well. Knows her tells. She knows something that’s she’s held close for a very long time. “Peg?” He lets his voice ask the rest of the question.

“I…back when you,” she pauses and stares at her hands, fiddles with her wedding band. “I received a letter one day, back when you’d just returned. It was from Benjamin, and he told me how wonderful you were, how much you helped him. He said something bad had happened, right before the war ended, and that you had helped him through it. He said he loved you. And I just…Erin.”

All the blood that had been rushing for BJ’s face ran away with a quickness. Goosebumps raised up on his arms, and all he could do for nearly a minute was stare at his wife. His beautiful, wonderful wife, who had never once asked any questions about the war and Korea unless she already knew the answers. His wife who had welcomed Hawk into the house more than once, made up the guest room and fixed him coffee. His beautiful, wonderful wife. “Peg, honey, it’s not like that.”

“No?” Her face is blank, almost slack, waiting for whatever he says next. It’s the way she stands with her shoulders slightly rolled forward that gives away her hope that he’ll say just the right thing.

“Hawk and I…” BJ trails off and stares at his bare feet, wondering what to say. He looks her in the eyes as he starts to craft the lie. “It’s love that men have for one another when they’ve spent time almost getting killed together. It’s gratefulness and relief and friendship, and you call it love because all you see where you are is hate and destruction and confusion and pain. It’s a desperate attempt by mere men to understand the universe of war.” And he sounds more like Hawkeye than himself, but he tries not to think about it, hopes that Peg doesn’t notice, feels grateful when her shoulders roll back and she breathes through her mouth. “It’s not like Erin, honey.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

But she does, and probably has for close to forever, and BJ thinks that he could call her on it, that they could peel back twenty-odd years of half-truths and skipped stories, and he could tell her everything she’s never asked about him and one small, drafty tent, and the almost oppressive way Hawkeye’s personality could fill the walls to bursting. But he doesn’t know where that would leave them in the end, if the total honesty that they’re staring at from the precipice is worth more than what it will destroy. Because it will destroy them; he is completely and totally sure of that.

Instead, they lie in bed together, Peg’s back to him, her nightgown slightly wrinkled against her skin. BJ listens to her breathe, listens to the way her body relaxes as she falls asleep, and once he’s sure she’s fully unaware, he slips out of bed and out of the bedroom and down to the phone in the kitchen. He dials slowly and carefully and stares at the plates in the sink that Peg hadn’t washed because Erin had had important news. He listens to the phone ring and imagines Crabapple Cove from the last time he saw it, with frost on the ground and the trees bare but majestic. He remembers Hawkeye, hair gone nearly white with the same crinkle around his eyes, the same calluses on his hands, the same irreverent but painfully aware sense of humor. They’d talked briefly of the new war, Vietnam, just enough to get mad enough to have an excuse to drink, and they’d sat up all night on Hawkeye’s front porch with the cheapest, dirtiest gin they could find and the martini glasses that Hawkeye had managed to get home in his luggage all those years ago.

BJ thinks of it while the phone rings. He’s relieved that Hawkeye doesn’t pick up on the first ring. First ring pick up means insomnia and bitterness and Hawkeye poking and jabbing at BJ until he snaps and they fight. BJ needs Hawk at neutral to start. He can wing it from there, knows how to work around Hawk’s defenses and through his bluster, but he needs the basic building blocks of Hawkeye to get there in the first place.

“Dr. Pierce, at your semi-unconscious service,” said after the sixth ring in a voice that’s mostly awake but rough with sleep. 

“Hey, Hawk,” BJ says quietly. He knows his tone has done the talking when there’s rustling and sounds of movement on the other end of the line.

“Beej-“ a break for what sounds like a massive yawn, “what’s going on?”

“Erin’s home for a visit. She…” he trails off and stares out the kitchen window, watches the way the tree branches hit against the window.

“Beej?” Hawk sounds completely awake now and slightly worried. “Is Erin okay?”

BJ snaps back to himself. “She’s fine, Hawk. Sorry. I just…do you remember when Margaret made that blanket?” He’s not surprised at the long pause. That blanket, when she’d finally finished it after almost making the sweater and scarf, had ended up big enough for four people to sit under during the movies. One night he and Hawk had stolen it for themselves, sat in the back, and held hands underneath. It had been almost too sweet, and BJ still can’t think about it with Peg in the room. It feels more like cheating than anything else. He’s still not sure why.

“Beej,” Hawkeye’s voice is careful, and BJ remembers a dozen kids being told they’d lost an arm, and another dozen being told they’d lost a leg. “What happened with Erin?”

BJ pictures a bandage, imagines ripping it off in the smoothest motion possible, and keeps that picture in his head as he says, “She’s gay, Hawkeye. She told Peg and I tonight that she’s gay.”

The pause this time is longer and harder, punctuated by late-night static and Hawkeye’s breath in his ear. He remembers certain nights, promises made under the cover of gin and blankets. Promises kept the next day with a quick smile and Hawkeye’s leg warm against his in the mess tent. Finally, Hawkeye speaks. “I have to go. I have to think.”

“I…but…you can’t just-“

“I’ll call you back in twenty minutes. Wait by the phone.”

BJ bites his tongue to keep from saying he’s been waiting twenty years. Because he hasn’t, he reminds himself as he puts the receiver back on the cradle. He’s had a life and children and a brilliant, wonderful wife. He has a house and a yard and a fairly new car. He is beloved by his patients and children. And his wife, despite twenty-odd years of worrying, has been right beside him, smiling a real smile and holding his hand.

“Dad?” Erin’s in the doorway to the kitchen, barefoot in striped pajamas, her hair messy around her head. “What’s going on?”

He considers saying, “nothing”, the way he did when she was younger and would wander in during other late night phone conversations. He considers telling a lie, something about Hawkeye and his crazy late nights, turning it into stories about the war, about the times he and Hawk played practical jokes. Nothing too heavy this late at night; Erin’s always been prone to nightmares, and BJ still isn’t convinced it’s not somehow his fault. He decides to go with the truth, because she gave it to him tonight, and he didn’t give it to Peg. “I was talking to Hawkeye.”

Erin smiles and walks further into the kitchen, opening the fridge and giving them a little light. “Is he okay?”

BJ wonders how many times Erin heard him talking Hawkeye down from a ledge when she was a child. Wonders if that’s where her nightmares started, listening to her daddy talk urgently into the phone late into the night. “He’s fine. I called him.”

“Gave him the news, huh?” Erin’s voice, muffled by the fridge, carries a tension that makes BJ ache.

“Oh, honey,” he leans over her and kisses the top of her head. “You’re my favorite daughter.”

“As always, I feel it’s important to note I’m your only daughter.” Said with a smile BJ only saw in pictures for much too long.

“Which makes it much easier to let you be my favorite.” He takes the plate of cold cuts she hands him, puts it on the counter, and grabs the mustard from the door. She gets the bread from the bread box, and they make sandwiches together in silence; BJ remembering the years gone by, when she was tiny with feet on her pajamas, Hawkeye encouraging her to stay up late, putting her on the counter so that she could dictate how they should be making their snacks. Peg had never stayed up for those nights, never come down to send them to bed. BJ had never considered anything but Peg’s natural want of an early night. Now he wonders if it meant something more, if Peg were testing him, or testing herself or maybe even testing Hawkeye.

“Dad?” Erin brings him back with her voice barely above a whisper. “You looked lost.”

“Just thinking.” He hands her the sandwiches, puts away the makings, and grabs two beers from the fridge. There’s an itch under his skin for a dryer-than-dry martini, but he pushes it aside and silently blames Hawkeye for the urge. He’d barely drunk the things before Hawkeye and his sweat sock hooch.

“Come back, Dad,” Erin’s teasing as she opens the beers and settles into her chair at the table. “How is Hawkeye?”

“He’s all right.” BJ thinks of the last few times they’ve talked, the genuineness of Hawkeye’s laugh, the easiness with which he teased, the beginnings of a plan for BJ to visit. “I’ll probably fly out to see him soon.”

“With Mom?”

BJ shakes his head. “Just me.” He watches Erin play with the crust of her sandwich, wonders what she’s thinking, wonders if she’ll ask.

“Has Mom ever gone with you?”

His baby girl is smart. Always has been. She asks the question like it holds no importance, but she’s still mangling her bread crust. BJ shakes his head, but she doesn’t see it. “She stays here and enjoys the quiet. She didn’t get it a lot when you brats were running around.” He smiles when Erin smiles, watches the breadcrumbs fall onto the tabletop. “But we managed to mostly get rid of you, and she takes the peace.”

“And you go see Hawkeye.”

“I do.” He waits for the question he can feel in the air. Wonders is she remembers the trips he took when she was younger. Wonders what Peg said as he kissed them all goodbye and got into a taxi. Wonders, again, if what he and Hawkeye had in Korea is responsible for Erin in the here and now.

“Do you two love each other?”

It’s not quite the phrasing he’s expecting, but it’s close enough. “Of course. We’re friends.”

“You went through a war,” and the tone she uses is so much Peg that BJ feels a swift hit of guilt slam into his ribcage.

“Honey, Hawkeye and I…” He stops talking when she looks at him. He takes a long pull of his beer and watches her take a bite of her sandwich. “War is a crazy place, kid,” he finally says, after she’s chewed and swallowed and resumed watching him. “The things you see, the things you do, even as a doctor, the things you do are completely foreign, some of them are downright wrong, and you’re left in the middle of it trying to figure out what to do, how to handle it. I don’t regret one second I was over there, because I know I did a good job, and I got to meet Hawkeye and Margaret and Klinger and Radar. But war is still a terrible thing, and if I could stop everything in Vietnam from happening, I would, because you kids don’t need to go through that like I did.” He pauses for breath, and she steals it from him in one question.

“Are you in love with him?” There’s hope in her eyes, a little girl looking to her daddy for an explanation, for a reason why she is how she is, and BJ wants to lie and hide himself away, but it’s his baby girl, and she’s still scared from earlier, and all he can do is empty his secrets at her feet and let her inspect them.

“I am.”

“And Mom?”

“Her too.” BJ’s not surprised at the confusion that stamps itself on her face. It’s confused him for years. “I can’t explain it in any way that makes sense. I love your mom. I’m in love with her. Have been since the first date, but Hawkeye and I, it’s made of different stuff. It’s…” he can’t figure out how to finish. He shrugs. “It is what it is.”

“Does Mom know?”

BJ is nearly certain that Peg knows everything, even the parts he’s never told, the parts he’s never once acted on since coming back. “Your mother knows enough to wonder. Further than that, I’m afraid to ask.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Erin breathes out through her mouth, rolls her eyes in the classic motion of teenage girls around the world. “Why wouldn’t you tell Mom? If you think she has a clue that means she probably has a clue. She’s not an idiot, Dad.”

BJ considers the question, considers the man he was and the man he is and the woman his daughter has become. “It’s not about honesty,” he finally says when she has a mouthful of sandwich, “it’s about how things are done. Your mom and I have been together a long time, and when we fell in love, there were rules, and while the times are changing, as you and the boys are so wonderfully happy to remind us, some things haven’t. You can’t relearn a lifetime.”

“Which makes Hawkeye, what, exactly?”

“I don’t understand,” but it’s a lie, and BJ sees that Erin knows. He’s convinced every ounce of her shrewdness was learned from Hawkeye in the early years of her life. She sees through everyone around her like they’re cellophane. It’s not a trait either he or Peg has ever had in abundance.

“Dad, I’m 24. I’m working on a big fancy degree. I lied to you and Mom for years. I know a liar when I see one, and you’re it.”

BJ watches her get up and get fresh beers for the both of them. He carries their plates to the sink and sets their empty bottles in the trash. They face off in the middle of the kitchen, where Erin blocks him in until he says something. “Homosexuality isn’t a new idea, Erin. It’s been around as long as people, probably, but it’s not something that was ever discussed or mentioned or hinted when your mom and I met. No matter what I tell her now, no matter the years I’ve spent with her since, all she’ll see in her mind for the rest of her life is the thousand signs she thinks she missed. Hawkeye and I, we’re friends now. That’s all we’ve been since we’ve come back. War makes you do things. Coming home makes you stop them, because that’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.”

“That is such crap.” Erin hands BJ one of the beers, twists the cap off her own, and takes a long swallow before she expands on her topic. “You’re just using the repressive nature of your upbringing as an excuse to believe that Mom wouldn’t hear you out. You don’t actually know if she would or wouldn’t. You’re just being scared.”

“I’m not scared,” and there’s venom in his voice that he’s never used with Erin. “I’ve been scared. Believe me, kiddo, when you spend your days taking bullets out of kids, you learn scared. I ducked bombs and snipers and clipped golf balls into a minefield. I watched my best friend lose his mind because a woman took him too literally. I’ve spent twenty-odd years loving your mother and loving my friend and worrying that one would end the other. I know from scared. I can handle scared. What we’re talking about is terrifying, and it’s got nothing to do with upbringing and everything to do with expectation.”

There’s a long pause. BJ’s never been one to go into a speech about his feelings, always willing to talk about it in short bursts as needed. Erin’s never seen him quite like this, he knows, but then Erin’s never been old enough to really understand and handle what it is to get into a discussion of feelings and motivations with him before. His baby girl’s grown up, and she’s staring at him, and for some reason it makes BJ’s palms sweat.

“Expectations are crap, Dad,” she finally says in a tone that matches her mother’s. “It’s your life.”

“It’s the life I have with your mother. It’s a life I like.”

“And I liked having a life with you and Mom, but I was also honest with both of you tonight, and I get the feeling that my life’s going to get a whole lot better now that I don’t have a boulder around my neck.”

The only thing that would make the moment more uncomfortable, BJ decides, is if Erin were holding a martini instead of a beer. He considers genetics through osmosis as the phone lets loose a ring. He only just manages to get to it before Erin. “Hello?”

“Beej,” and it’s Hawkeye, sounding more awake than twenty minutes previous. “You really know how to wake up a guy.”

“Learned from the best,” BJ manages, tracking Erin with his peripheral. She settles at the table and throws him a look, chin out and mouth in a hard line. She’s not planning to go anywhere. “How went the thinking?”

“The thinking almost went to gin.” Static sprinkles the line, but the seriousness in Hawkeye’s voice carries. “Beej, what the hell is going on?”

He considers where to start. Erin’s the logical point; her revelation made Peg open up in the first place, but this isn’t about Erin, and it isn’t about Peg, and it certainly isn’t about logic. It’s about Hawk and him and Korea, and there isn’t a damn bit of logic in any of it. “Peg told me about the letter,” and he leaves it at that.

“Beej…” and Hawkeye trails off. BJ imagines him sitting at his kitchen table, phone to his ear, head held in one hand and his eyes squeezed shut. “I’d give you a great excuse with lots of oral gymnastics, but I just don’t have it in me this late.”

“Why?” BJ asks, and he hears an echo of Erin’s earlier tone in his own. Maybe she didn’t get all those tones from Peg after all.

“I was mostly crazy and most certainly drunk and mostly scared and definitely lonely. And I was jealous, because you went home with a full bag of rocks in your head, and I’d spilled some of mine along the way. You had a wife and a kid, and I was in Crabapple Cove with a bed that was actually wide and long and all I wanted was a painful little cot that was big enough for one-half.” Hawkeye’s voice is factual, like he’s listing off someone’s chart or the possible hands in poker, but there’s an edge, raw and brittle, that puts BJ back in Korea and back in their tent and back at the operating tables for thirty-seven hour stretches. “I thought writing her would help. I was trying to do the right thing, make friends with the missus so she wouldn’t suspect.”

“She did,” BJ says and sighs heavily, not missing the way Erin is blatantly eavesdropping. “Apparently, she has for awhile.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

It never is, BJ thinks but doesn’t say. He could use it, poke Hawk with the knowledge that his best intentions usually end up with him in deep trouble, but he’s the nice one, always has been. Not because it’s easier and not because he’s particularly passive, but because he just doesn’t have it in him to be cruel without good reason. Neither does Hawk. Which is why Hawk’s never mentioned the letter and why BJ won’t go on a hunting trip for Hawkeye’s open wounds. He knows them all too well as is. “I think Peg knew it too. That’s why she didn’t say anything.”

“Until Erin.”

“Yeah.” BJ glances over his shoulder and glares at Erin. She leans back in her chair and takes a sip of her beer. “Is there any chance,” he asks Hawk in a stage whisper, “of passing your stubbornness through osmosis to my darling daughter?” He doesn’t miss Erin’s grin, which he recognizes as his own. Somehow, that makes it more obnoxious. “Do you think-“

“You are not allowed to use any medical terminology in this conversation, Beej. This isn’t a medical problem. It is what it is.”

“For Erin or for us?”

There’s a pause, heavy with the weight of everything they’ve avoided saying for so very long. BJ stares at the wall, notices a scratch he hasn’t seen before. He wonders what Hawkeye’s staring at all the way across the country. 

“Beej,” it’s Hawkeye’s soft voice, the one he always used back in Korea to talk BJ down from the high, windy places in his mind. “We’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s better if we don’t talk about it.”

“Why?”

“Because you have a wife and three kids.”

It feels like a brick has landed in BJ’s stomach. He can’t breathe for a minute. “Hawk-“

“We don’t talk about it, BJ.” And Hawkeye hangs up the phone.


	2. Chapter 2

BJ wants to call him back, call him a coward, but all he can do is put the phone in the cradle. He turns around and gives Erin a long look. “Go to bed.” 

“Dad?” Her eyebrows scrunch together and she doesn’t remind BJ of anyone at all except herself. That expression is purely hers.

“Just go to bed.” BJ shoves off the wall and heads to his bedroom. He flops down next to Peg, not caring if his movements wake her and stares up at the ceiling until he falls asleep against his best efforts.

He wakes up at just barely dawn, Peg curled against his side, warming his arm and leg. BJ eases his way out of bed and makes his way to the kitchen. He stares into the refrigerator for minutes before pulling out eggs and milk and some leftover ham from dinner two nights before. A little more digging and he unearths a half a block of cheese and a lone onion that doesn’t look like it’s quite ready to give up on being used in a meal. BJ lines up everything on the counter and gets to work, chopping the onion and dicing the ham, grating the cheese and whipping the eggs in a bowl with the milk and a little bit of pepper. He keeps his head down, eyes on the knife as it breaks down the onion. He does not look at the phone.

Peg comes into the kitchen first, hair combed, robe cinched, and breath smelling of mint. She kisses him on the cheek, murmurs something about how nice everything smells, and retrieves coffee cups from the cabinet to the left of BJ’s shoulder. BJ knows without asking that she’s letting last night drop. She won’t bring it up again unless it becomes an absolute necessity. BJ isn’t certain if it needs to be one or not.

Erin comes into the kitchen with the same half-running footsteps she’s had all her life. She wishes Peg good morning, grabs her own coffee cup, and glances at BJ. “Morning, Dad.”

“Morning,” BJ says as he starts pouring eggs into the frying pan. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Fine.” There’s a distinct, heavy clunk behind him, but BJ doesn’t turn to look. He can feel the two points in the back of his head where Erin is trying to drill holes. He wonders if she managed to crack the coffee cup with all the force she just laid into it. “Make toast, will you, kiddo?” He says instead of turning and snarling. The lack of noise in-between his request and Erin actually moving to fill it makes BJ’s shoulders tighten. Peg, setting the table, doesn’t seem to notice anything different between the two of them, and BJ feels his shoulders tighten further. How much of his marriage, he wonders, has been spent with Peg ignoring things? He shakes his head at himself a moment later, tasting hypocrisy at the back of his throat. It’s like dirt and cold, cold air. Like the first time he kissed Hawkeye, three days into his first winter in Korea.

“Honey?” Peg’s at his elbow, nudging him out the way with a press of her hip. “You’re burning the omlettes.” She gives him a smile, slightly reserved, and it tears at BJ’s insides. “Sit down and have your coffee. I’ll finish these.”

He wants to be a good husband; he’s always wanted to be a good husband. He sits and sips his coffee and ignores the look that Erin gives him across the table. She’s not nearly as much like Hawkeye in the daylight, he decides. Hawkeye would be dropping anvils with tiny scraps of hints attached to them. Hawkeye would be kicking him under the table. Hawkeye would be giving him a better glare than Erin’s aiming his way, and he’d be threatening to spit into BJ’s coffee to boot.

“You look tired, Dad,” there’s an underlying viciousness in Erin’s tone that plays as early-morning crankiness.

“Had a lot to think about last night, honey.”

Peg turns from the stove, eyes narrowed at BJ’s tone. “Honey, it’s early. Let’s not get into this now.” BJ stares at her, sees Erin doing the same in his side vision. He knows they’re both wondering which “this” thery’re not supposed to be getting into just yet. Peg seems to interpret their looks as a need for an explanation. “Honey,” and Peg’s tone makes it clear she’s talking to Erin. It’s a motherly tone, warm but slightly worried. “Your dad and I just need a little time to adjust. We’re glad you’re happy, but it’s an adjustment.”

BJ doesn’t have to look to know that Erin is glaring daggers at him. He wonders what she’ll say, if she’ll let loose with everything she knows. She sighs instead of saying anything and takes a drink of her coffee. “I’m going to get dressed,” she says rather than going for the kill. BJ thinks it hurts more than if she’d actually gone for a cheap shot.

“Oh, dear,” Peg mutters as she slides BJ’s omlette onto his plate with a spatula. “I think I handled that wrong.”

“No, you did fine.” BJ stands and kisses the top of her head, smells her shampoo and thinks of every morning they’ve had together. The kids they’ve raised, the life they’ve made. “She’s sensitive about it, Peg. It’s only to be expected.”

“I just…I do want her to be happy.” She says it and looks BJ straight in the eyes. His gut twists, and he swallows carefully. 

“She is, or at least she’s getting there.”

“And how long does that take?” There’s fire in her voice, fire in her eyes, but she’s got a poker face that BJ envies. He can’t read her face at all. 

“It’s a matter of acceptance, Peg. She was expecting rejection, probably, and she didn’t get that. She’s got to realize that we really do mean it when we say we want her happy, whatever that means.” BJ waits for Peg to say something else, hopes against his better judgment that she presses the issue, that they have it out. He needs a good fight. He needs an honest fight. He needs honesty. He needs someone who will actually talk to him.

“It means she’s happy,” and Peg turns away from him, heading back to the stove and back to breakfast. 

BJ opens his mouth to press forward, to make her talk, but nothing comes out. He’s empty. His gut twists further, but it doesn’t hurt this time. This is his life, he realizes in a burst. This is what he convinced himself was necessary to get over Korea. Peg and Erin and the boys, his practice, the mostly-new car. Hawkeye at arms length because it was as far as BJ could stand to push him away. But he hasn’t recovered. He’s never going to recover. What Korea did to him, what it made him, what he made of himself, there’s no changing it back. He’s stuck in a post-Korea world trying to live a Pre-Korea life. 

We don’t talk about it, BJ. 

Because there isn’t one goddamned thing to talk about. BJ’s legs go out, and he collapses into his chair, his breath coming in quick gasps. The coffee is lukewarm but helps center him, helps him breathe. He digs his way out of his head and looks around the kitchen. Peg is watching him from the stove, worry in her eyes, but she’s still keeping her distance. BJ tries to smile at her, but he can feel the shakiness. He takes another drink of his coffee and forces his hand steady to cut into his omlette. It tastes like absolutely nothing in his mouth. What the hell has he done to himself, to Peg, to the kids?

“BJ?” Peg’s coming towards him slowly, like he’ll jerk around and bite off her hand if she offers it. “BJ, honey, what is it? Are you feeling okay?”

He’s feeling nothing, but he can’t tell her that. He stands up and touches her face. “I’m fine, sweetheart. I’m going to lock myself away in the study for awhile, okay?” She’s confused, he can see, but she just nods and takes the kiss he busses on her cheek.

He calls Hawkeye’s house every twenty minutes for three hours and gets the machine over and over again. He can’t leave a message; he has no idea what to say.

Hey, Hawk, it’s Beej. I just wanted…

Hey, it’s me. I’m sorry for…

It’s Beej. Last night was…

Hawk, I’m a dick. 

Hawk, I’m a terrible friend.

Hawk, sometimes I spend whole days remembering Korea.

Hawk, I’m sorry. I’m just sorry. 

Finally, as the sun alters itself to slice through the blinds on the windows, BJ comes out of the study, tail between his legs, and makes his way to the bedroom, changing into his Saturday clothes and going through the motions of the weekend. He checks the shingles on the roof and clears the trash out of his car. There are no leaves to rake, but he picks up sticks out of the yard and untangles the wind chime. Peg sweeps the front porch while he checks the posts of the porch railing, but they don’t talk. She gives him one small smile, but BJ can’t bring himself to return it. Erin makes herself scarce for the day, yelling something about studying down the hall when Peg announces lunch, and BJ is grateful that at least one of them has figured out tact. He and Peg sit across from one another and make small talk over sandwiches and lemonade. BJ insists on washing the dishes, sending Peg to enjoy the breeze and sunshine on the porch while he wipes down knives and plates and glasses. He puts everything into the dish strainer methodically; plates stacking one behind the other, knives into the silverware section, and glasses behind the plates. He’s wiping down the edges of the sink with a dish towel when the front door slams open with a fierceness that’s not normal. BJ comes out of the kitchen, drying his hands on his jeans, and finds Hawkeye standing in the middle of the living room like he’s somehow gotten lost. Peg’s in the doorway behind him, looking confused but not terribly surprised. All BJ can do is blink.

“Beej.” It’s a full sentence, somehow, and BJ feels his throat close.

“Hawk.” BJ’s gaze bounces from Hawk to Peg. She stares back at him, her face flushed, before stepping forward and squaring her shoulders at Hawkeye.

“Benjamin,” she says with the barest slice of anger in her voice. “This is a surprise.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not true at all.” Hawkeye’s voice is all smarm and even though his eyes are flat, his spine is straight. BJ recognizes the set of his mouth and the tilt of his head and knows he has to speak up or Peg will get flayed.

“Peg,” he says quietly, “why don’t you grab Erin and go into the city tonight? She hasn’t been to that restaurant we found last month.” The look Peg gives him makes BJ hurt; it’s distrust and disbelief and no small amount of raw anger, but he stands firm and forces himself not to glance at Hawkeye. The trust she holds for him, if she holds any at all, will collapse if BJ looks away in this moment. Finally, after a small eternity, Peg nods and walks out of the living room and down the hall. BJ breathes out and lets his shoulders relax and makes his way into the kitchen. 

“Drink?” It’s the only thing that seems right to say. There’s a pause, but BJ waits it out; he doesn’t want to start this conversation with Peg and Erin still in the house.

“Any cheap gin?” Hawkeye follows behind him, voice calm, but BJ can see his hands shaking. He doesn’t say anything about it, just reaches into the high cupboard behind all the good stuff for the lighter fluid disguising itself as actual liquor.

BJ mixes their drinks methodically, pours them into scotch glasses because he and Peg don’t own martini glasses, and sets them on the table before taking up position across from Hawkeye. He remembers extra-hot nights in the Swamp, when they would throw off the covers and sit facing each other on their beds, T-shirts and boxers sticking to their skin as they drank themselves into unconsciousness. He remembers the curve of Hawkeye’s knee and the way he’d slide out of his shirt after the third drink, leaving the shirt in a ball on the floor, and BJ’s heart in his throat at the sight of Hawkeye’s lean chest and small nipples. Some nights they’d end up sweaty against each other, breathing hard after an orgasm, splitting the final drink in the still. Most nights, though, it was just them, together, talking and laughing; complaining sometimes and crying others, the last only when they were really and truly alone. They’re memories BJ doesn’t remember very often. It’s too dangerous to remember those hot nights. Hot nights were the nights everyone slept alone, even Frank and Margaret. To have sex on those hot nights, it meant more than the other times, spoke of how far Hawk had gotten under his skin, how far he’d gotten under Hawk’s.

“Beej,” and Hawkeye’s voice is searching but in no way careful. He wants answers, BJ knows, and he’s ready to jab into the open wounds with whatever sharp object will work. “What the hell are you doing?”

Peg and Erin come down the hall before BJ can answer. Peg doesn’t bother to glance at Hawkeye, simply pecks BJ on the cheek and heads for the front door. Erin looks from BJ to Hawkeye and back, and BJ wonders what’s going on in her head, what conclusions she’s decided must be correct. He takes the hug she gives him and watches her walk out, not missing the way Hawkeye’s face pulls when Erin doesn’t bother to acknowledge him past her first glance. The door closes with a finality that makes BJ twitch. Hawkeye’s hands are still shaking.

“I don’t have any idea what I’m doing,” BJ says after the sound of the car has faded down the street. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” He watches Hawkeye stare into his glass and thinks about their first meeting, Hawkeye almost inconsolable because of Trapper, BJ almost inconsolable because of Peg and Erin. They’d gotten drunker than he’d ever been in his life, and it’s a memory that BJ wraps around himself on his worst days. No matter how bad Korea got, no matter how much of Korea followed him home, no matter the fact that he’s just now realized the last two decades have been a lie to everyone around him, Hawkeye is still here, and there’s still gin, and they’ll find a way to figure it out. Just like that first day, with those first drinks, and Hawkeye’s first smile for him.

“I never know what I’m doing, Beej, not with you.” Hawkeye plants his hands on the table and flexes his fingers. “I think I’m here to stop you from doing something stupid.”

That makes BJ laugh. “Need a change of pace, Hawk?” His voice is lighter than he expects, and he raises his glass in Hawkeye’s direction. “Stupidity?” He watches Hawkeye fight the grin that’s trying to take over his face, presses his knee against Hawk’s under the table. After an age, Hawkeye lifts his own glass.

“Stupidity.”

They drink quickly, and BJ stands, gathering the gin and vermouth, the cocktail olives from the fridge, and a bowl full of ice. He puts the gin and vermouth under the ice, passes the bowl to Hawkeye, and leads the way to the front porch, setting the glasses and olives on the porch railing and instructing Hawkeye to sit in one of the rocking chairs with a wave of his hand. Hawk sets the bowl between the chairs and rocks back and forth for a few minutes. BJ watches him from the corner of his eye, notices that his hands are still shaking and wonders how to start the conversation again. Hawkeye, being Hawkeye, handles that part for him.

“Nice porch.”

“Thanks.”

“Good way to keep your hands to yourself.”

BJ says nothing to that, just tips back his head and thinks of the afternoons outside the Swamp, camp chairs protecting their jar of gin, vermouth portioned out like the last of the blood supply. There weren’t usually olives then, but sometimes they could sneak bits of onion from the mess and leave them to soak in the bottom of their glasses. He remembers Frank yelling about “reprobates” and Charles sniffing about “crudeness”, about the way Margaret would teetotal on the slow days but gratefully accept whatever they had left in the still after three straight days in surgery. He remembers the look on Radar’s face when they spiked his Ne-hi and the way Father Mulcahy somehow knew how to twist the valve on the still. Poker nights blur together in his memories. He sees Klinger in a dress, a new pair of heels, a stole ordered from Sears and Roebuck. Klinger in proper army clothes, a nearly-tattered pair of pants and a threadbare long-sleeve shirt, the holes in the elbows sewed with the precision of a man who knows his way around a needle and thread. Colonel Potter on Sophie, riding through the camp on his way to see the orphans, to give them a chance to ride. 

But mostly he sees Hawkeye, all arms and legs and determined anger. He remembers the way he sang off-key in the shower but hummed in perfect pitch when they lay together and BJ couldn’t sleep. Soap on Hawkeye’s shoulders and half-hearted grumbling at Radar when he had to be woken for wounded. He remembers passion and vigor, forty seconds of word play about why Hawkeye wouldn’t carry a gun. Hawk listening to his letters from Peg, staying quiet until the end on the days when all BJ wanted was a reminder that there was more to the world than Korea. Throwing out smart remarks every two sentences when they both needed a fight.

“I’ve missed you,” BJ mumbles. He looks over at Hawkeye. “I really have.”

“I’ve been here, Beej.”

“Yeah.” BJ reaches for the glasses, and he hears Hawkeye reach for the ice. “I thought I could pick up where I left off. I had a family started when I went to Korea, it was here when I got back. My daughter was walking and talking and spent the first few weeks shy around me, but I figured it was a small price to pay. I’d come back. They were still here. Everything else could fade into the background, just be the occasional funny story.”

“The time you filled Frank’s air raid hole with water.”

“Collecting all those pictures for that poor kid whose girlfriend dumped him.”

“That bonfire we built from all the furniture in camp.”

“Tokyo.”

“Klinger.”

BJ smiles at Hawkeye. “Hot Lips.” Hawkeye returns the smile.

“Charles Emerson Winchester, the third.” Hawkeye affects a terrible Boston accent, “However do you two drink that battery acid with which you stink up this already deplorable tent?”

And that makes BJ laugh, a deep-down belly laugh that he hasn’t used in months. He laughs while Hawkeye fills the drinks and laughs after Hawkeye fits the drink into his hand and laughs as Hawkeye takes the first few sips from his drink. 

“And that’s not even my best Charles impression,” Hawkeye says instead of digging in about BJ’s overabundant, desperate mirth. 

BJ sips his drink and stares out at his lawn, at the neighbors across the street who are obviously wondering when the upstanding Dr. Honnicutt started drinking on his front porch with that odd little friend of his who they still don’t honestly believe is another doctor. “What have I done, Hawk?” he finally asks.

“Hell if I know, Beej.” Hawk knocks back the rest of his drink and waves his glass in the direction of the curious neighbors. They get up and walk into their house, and BJ doesn’t miss the triumphant smile that hangs on the corner of Hawkeye’s mouth. “I don’t even know how I got here. I hung up on you, and then I was on a plane, and then I was in a rental car and then I was here. Everything else is just kind of…fuzzy.”

My whole life’s been fuzzy, BJ thinks but doesn’t say. It’s not entirely true. He remembers his first day home in enormous detail; Peg with her pearls, Erin’s tiny feet in her tiny shoes. He remembers the births of his boys. He remembers Erin’s first day of school and all her graduations, the smiles from the boys when he taught them about cars and bike chains and how to shave, and he’s certain that he’ll never forget last night, when his baby girl proved she was grown up, and BJ realized he wasn’t at all. And he’ll never forget earlier in the day, the fire in Peg’s eyes and the blankness of her face, a woman who was already certain she’d lost. But there’s so much of his life, post-Korea, that he can’t really recall. His work at the practice isn’t boring, but the memories of Korea are stronger. The years have slid through his fingers and now his bones are creaking and his eyes are slowly going and he’s here on the front porch of his house thinking of twenty years past and Hawkeye, as he was and as he is and how they could be together, if only BJ could stretch himself that far.

‘I’m sorry,” BJ says and downs his second drink. He stares at the dregs, the lone olive jammed between the ice cubes. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” The scoff from Hawkeye soothes something in BJ. 

“Hell, Beej, I’m not even sure if my head’s stitched back together some days. There are days I can’t leave the house because I think I’m going to walk outside and be back in Korea. I’ll have nightmares for weeks, and then they’ll just disappear. I heard people speaking Korean in the store last week and felt like the walls were going to close in. Sidney says it’s the long-term effects of shell-shock, that sometimes your brain stays a little bit crazy.”

“Your brain was already a little bit crazy,” BJ says without thinking. In the nanosecond before Hawkeye laughs, BJ worries that the careful truth they’re building is going to tumble into dust.

“You’d know,” Hawk retorts, “Mr. ‘Buttoned-up-buttoned-down-can’t-unbutton-the-button-press-the-button-sew-the-button-or-button-my-lip.”

BJ chuckles and refills their drinks, and they rock on the porch as the sun goes down. When it finally goes dark and the stars start to show, BJ reaches across the space of their chairs and curls his fingers around Hawkeye’s hand. “You’ve been shaking since you got here,” he says.

“Lack of booze.”

“You have booze.”

“Well, shit,” Hawk says quietly, “I suppose I do.” He shifts his hand and intertwines his fingers with BJ’s fingers. BJ closes his eyes to remember the feeling of Hawk’s hand, slightly cool and damp from his glass, wrapped up in his own, the way Hawk’s thumb brushes his wrist, the low hum from Hawk of some Sinatra fragment. Twenty years between then and now and here they sit, half-drunk on cheap gin, holding hands on his front porch. 

“Step one,” Hawkeye says as he stands and pulls BJ up along with him. “Or step two, if the drinking was a necessity before you could touch me.”

“No,” BJ murmurs, leaning against Hawkeye and carefully backing him against one of the support posts, “the gin wasn’t necessary. Getting around the rocks in my head was necessary.”

“You should lose a few of those. Does wonders.”

“Maybe,” and BJ goes in for the kiss, dipping his head to meet Hawkeye halfway. It’s a quick kiss, a reacquainting, and Hawkeye’s the one to pull away.

“You have a wife and three kids,” Hawkeye says clearly, enunciating every word carefully, as if BJ has suddenly lost his hearing.

“I know.”

“You have a career and a car and a house.”

“I know.” BJ is close enough to see the pain that crosses Hawkeye’s face, even in the mostly-dark of the porch. He clutches Hawkeye’s hand. “Hawk?”

“I lost a lot of my life to Korea, Beej. I lost the two years I was there, and I’m still losing bits and pieces depending on the day. I don’t want-“

“This isn’t about Korea, Hawk.”

“Everything we are is because of Korea, Beej.” Hawkeye slides away from the porch post and sits back in the rocking chair. The street lamp hits him starkly, and BJ sees every year that’s passed Hawkeye in his life. The lines around his eyes are deeper than BJ’s ever seen them, and his hair has more white than gray now. “It got under my skin, into my veins, and it runs around in my blood. Everything goes back to Korea, especially you.”

BJ leans against the post that Hawk’s abandoned and wonders how he looks in the light, if the thin spot on the top of his head shines through and what his laugh lines must look like to Hawk. “There’s more than Korea, Hawk. There’s the here and now. There’s Sausalito and Crabapple Cove. We’ve had lives since then. We’ve become different men.”

“Except we’re sitting on your front porch half a drink from drunk and picking up where we left off in Korea.”

BJ almost argues, almost says they’re doing no such thing, except that Hawkeye is completely right, and he’s trying to make a real effort to stop kidding himself. “We can’t get around it, huh?”

“Doesn’t seem to have worked for you.”

And that stings, but BJ smiles, because that’s a Hawkeye he recognizes. He grabs the front of Hawk’s shirt and yanks him to his feet, pulls his close so that their chests are touching. “The kids are grown and even if we’d only sat here drinking, Peg would never trust me again.”

“Terrible thing to say about your wife.”

“I’m making an effort to be more truthful.” BJ watches Hawkeye look at him and feels like he’s being dissected. He wonders what Hawk’s seeing, what he’s weighing, what’s going to happen to him if Hawk decides he won’t be part of this and storms away, grief making his shoulders slump, because he can’t realign himself after twenty years of BJ being an obtuse ass.

“Goddamn you,” Hawkeye finally says, and his hands settle at BJ’s waist. “You and your kicked puppy face. Damn you straight to hell.” But it’s said without malice and the barest hint of a wan smile at the edges of Hawkeye’s mouth, and BJ grins, feels light and ridiculous because of Hawk’s acceptance.

“Straight to hell? I’m ashamed, Hawk. Such an obvious joke, isn’t it?”

“Shut up,” Hawkeye says, and then they’re kissing a little harder than necessary, BJ twists when Hawkeye’s fingers dig in, but he gives back by pushing his palms against the muscles of Hawkeye’s lower back. They stay like that, pressing back and forth, until BJ pulls away and tips back his head to breathe.

“Goddamn, Hawk.”

“Already said that.”

Headlights sweep down the street, and Hawkeye pulls away, settling into his rocking chair like he’s never been on his feet in the first place. BJ watches the lights grow into the shape of a car he somewhat recognizes as belonging down the street. He crosses his arms and drops his head and waits for the lights to fade. Hawkeye rocks back and forth, empty glass dangling from his hand, and BJ gives him a smile that feels crooked but honest. “Here we stand.”

“I’m sitting.”

“Here we stand and sit,” BJ says, his smile growing wider, a bit more even. “Two men growing old and just figuring out-“

“I’ve always known, Beej,” Hawkeye says, his voice calm but definitive. “From that first time, I knew.”

BJ feels himself gaping, feels like the world is shifting around under him. “But-“

“Because you have a wife and a baby, and while I was a drunk and a cad, I wasn’t a bastard.” Hawkeye runs a hand through his hair in a gesture so familiar it makes BJ ache a little. “I’ve obviously taken a left turn into Bastard Town.”

“No, you haven’t.” BJ squints into the darkness, looking for more signs of cars, listening for his particular car, the warning sign that this moment is about to end abruptly. “I’ve been there for years, Hawk. You’re nowhere close. You didn’t string along a family.”

“You’re speaking in past tense.” Hawkeye grabs the glasses and mixes two more drinks. BJ watches his hands and thinks about their first handshake, their first hug, the first time Hawk’s hands slid down his chest and dipped below his waistband, the first time they stroked his back while he cried after surgery. The way they used to run through his hair and over his leg and now they were dropping two olives into his glass. He has never looked at Peg’s hands and remembered any particular instance. He’s not even sure he could reliably describe Peg’s hands, but he’s never forgotten anything about Hawk, no matter how hard he’s tried.

“It’s becoming past tense.”

“Beej-“

“Hawk,” BJ interrupts as he takes his drink, swirls it around as Hawk stirs his with a finger. “Have you been waiting this whole time?”

“Waiting?” Hawk sucks his finger into his mouth; BJ tries not to lean forward to offer to help.

“Waiting for me.” 

Hawkeye’s laugh makes BJ flinch a little. It’s bitter in the middle and cold around the edges. “Oh, god, Beej, you-“ Hawkeye laughs again, and there’s a slight bit of warmth this time. “I didn’t wait, Beej. I couldn’t. I pushed myself forward with every last hope I had, and I had plenty of last hopes.” Hawkeye takes a drink from his glass that’s marred with so much desperation BJ almost checks to see if they’ve managed to somehow end up back in Korea. “I knew where I stood, Beej. I knew how far things would go after we both made it home. I knew you’d go home to Peg and Erin. I didn’t have any hope beyond having you while I could.”

BJ breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and takes his own desperate draw from his drink. “God, Hawk, I-“

“No apologies, Beej.” BJ bites his lip when Hawkeye suddenly crowds into his space, hand up under his shirt, fingernails scratching over his ribs. “There’s too many of those. Everyone’s given them to me because I went nuts, and I swear, if you start apologizing, I’ll pop you one, take your gin, and leave.”

“That’s barely gin,” BJ says as dry as he can. “It’s a step up from basic fire accelerant.”

“Still gets you drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Yet.”

BJ presses his glass against the back of Hawk’s neck, grins at the way he jumps and twists. “Then back away and get the booze.”

“Booze makes you do things, Beej. Don’t think I don’t know.”

“The booze never made me do a damned thing.” BJ settles into his rocking chair and drops more ice cubes into his glass. “I did everything I wanted to do.” And then I came home, he thinks but doesn’t say, just smiles at Hawk and raises his glass for a silent toast.


	3. Chapter 3

And so they sit on BJ’s pristine front porch with its solid posts and recently swept corners and get fully, properly drunk. Very, very late, long after the gin has been depleted, long after BJ should have noticed, it strikes him that Peg and Erin have not returned home. He’s buzzing along nicely, coming down in a slow glide from his alcohol high, and the information only registers on the level of oddity and not worry. He and Hawk sit in the chairs and watch the lawn, and it’s only as the sun starts to rise that they realize that they’ve been up for much too long and are finally sober enough to get up and move into the house. BJ doles out the aspirin and water, and they go to bed separately; Hawkeye falling face-first onto the guest bed in a movement that reminds BJ, as everything has that night, of their exhausting days in Korea. BJ heads for his own bedroom, and as he kicks off his shoes and throws back the covers, it strikes him again that Peg and Erin have not come home. He stares at the other side of the bed, with its undented pillow, stares at the bedside table where Peg keeps a book and a glass of water, stares at the floor and the windows and the doors and realizes, as the drunkedness slowly turns to a hangover, that she’s made her decisions as well. He decides to make no assumptions about Erin until he has slept and had proper, sober time to consider the love daughters have for their mothers.

When he wakes up it’s just past noon and his hangover is all headache. BJ rolls out of bed and pads down the hall, sticking his head into the guest room to see if Hawk is up and moving. Hawk is under the covers with only a tuft of hair showing, and BJ smiles as he rounds the corner to the kitchen.

And there’s Peg, by the stove, making up something in a pan. She gives BJ a look full of absolutely nothing and greets him blandly. “There you are.”

He tries to speak, but his throat is too dry. The glasses from last night are in the sink, and BJ tries not to look directly at them as he cups water from the tap and sucks it between his lips. When he turns, Peg isn’t looking at him, but he can feel her accusation in the air like the cool wind before a thunderstorm. “Erin?” He asks, because there’s no other question that’s safe.

“She’s running errands. Half her jeans are in tatters. I gave her some money to get new ones.”

“That’s fine,” and it’s completely the wrong thing to say. Peg’s glare is surprising in its intensity. BJ never would have guessed she had it in her. “Peg-“

“Did you have fun last night?” And her voice is soft and sweet, like the woman who so happily married him all those years ago; the woman who used to allow Hawkeye in the house without any problem at all; the woman who is willing to let everything return to the way its been if only BJ wants to play along. But he’s done with that, he knows, and it’s time to own up to the fact.

“We sat on the porch and drank. And then we came in and fell asleep. And you didn’t make it in by dawn.” He breathes in slowly at the look Peg gives him. She can’t believe he’s doing it, but he is, and backing down now will just leave the fight for another day, and BJ has no illusions that it’ll be anywhere near civilized.

“We decided to stay in the city.” The cheerfulness is gone, but BJ can hear the desperation. She wants him to play along. He’s always played along. They’ve been a happy family; mom, dad, the beautiful kids, and he’s taking it all apart. He knows that no matter how it ends, Peg will put the blame fully and solely on him. BJ’s mostly-certain he deserves it. Peg’s been a good mother and a good wife, and she’s put up with so much from him; the morose days after Korea, the nights he can’t sleep, the hours he’s kept at the office, and he imagines her ticking through all those things in her head, putting blame on Hawkeye where she feels it’s appropriate. 

“We sat on the porch and we drank, Peg. That’s it. We told stories and sat in the rocking chairs and talked about some things. You could have come home.”

“If I had come home, I would have kicked him out. I’m a better hostess than that.”

It’s like a knife in the gut, Peg proving her class. BJ watches her stir the sauce she has simmering, looks at her manicured nails and the perfect crease in her dress, and he’s strongly reminded of the ads from old magazines. Women with coifs and laundry baskets on their hips, one hand resting on the shoulder of a small child; women showing off cookware and high heels. Women who were told that being gracious and polite were top of the list. Clarity comes to BJ as he realizes exactly what Erin has been trying to say with all her talk about women’s rights and equal pay. He’s listened to her talk about it a dozen times, thought about Margaret every time, but until this moment, watching Peg with her styled hair and flat expression, he hasn’t understood what it means. Quiet desperation, BJ decides, isn’t a look he ever wants to see again.

“I don’t deserve you, Peg.” He watches her hand clench around the spoon and pushes forward anyway. “You’ve been a wonderful wife, and you’ve been a great mother. I’ve…I’ve been a jackass, and you’ve put up with it for twenty-odd years, but I think it’s time we sat down and talked and came to some decisions.” She’s stopped stirring, and BJ considers stepping back in case she decides the spoon would make a good weapon. 

“Is there anything to talk about, BJ?” Her voice is losing its veneer, coming off raw and pained along the edges. “We’ve never said anything before. Why start now?”

“There comes a time-“

“Oh, BJ, just stop.” Peg slams the spoon onto the stove and whirls to look directly at BJ. “There’s never been a time, and there never will be a time. Why bother pretending it’ll change anything?”

“Because we never talk!” And BJ’s tone is louder than he wants it, but Peg’s defeated, polite tone is making the skin on the back of his neck crawl, and he just wants a moment of openness, even if it’s in anger. “We chat and we blather and we mutter and murmur. We make small talk and large talk and no-point talk and-“

“Stop it!” Peg’s voice is shrill, her face flushed, and she breathes hard through her mouth. “How did you ever think I didn’t notice? How idiotic do you think I am?”

“He doesn’t think you’re idiotic.”

Now, BJ thinks, is possibly the worst timing Hawkeye has ever had in his entire damned life. But there he is, hair sticking up, T-shirt rumpled, standing in the doorway of the kitchen like the worst nightmare BJ has ever had.

“And what do you think, Hawkeye?” Peg’s voice is pure venom, and BJ wants to jump between them; throw up his hands and call a truce or a pause or even a second of silence, but all he can do is grip the edge of the sink and watch.

“I think,” and Hawkeye pauses to scratch behind his ear, as if he’s not two words away from getting verbally thrashed. BJ envies and hates him in that moment. “I think you want it to be his fault.”

“It is.”

“Partly, sure, but-“

“No ‘buts’. Not from you. He talks like you; did you know that? He thinks I don’t notice. He thinks I’m too ignorant to see what’s been going on in this house since he came back, but it’s always been there, and I’m not an idiot.”

That tears BJ straight through the chest. “Peg-“

“I am not talking to you,” Peg spats out and all BJ hears is the blood rushing in his ears.

“You never talk to me. All we’ve done is lie to each other, and I’ll take my blame, because I know I have a share, but you don’t get to stand here and yell at Hawk and pretend like I did all the lying. You had plenty of chances to say something; I gave them to you. But you just kept going, and I went with you because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else.”

And then there’s silence. BJ can hear someone mowing down the street, but in the kitchen it’s completely quiet. Hawkeye and Peg are glaring, BJ’s fingernails are digging into the underside of the counter, and it feels as though all the air has been swept from the kitchen. BJ knows he should say something more, find a way to tie things off, but he can’t find the energy. He wants to blame the hangover he doesn’t really have or the sound of the mower down the street, but all he can do is push off the counter, walk between Hawkeye and Peg and slam out onto the front porch. Erin is there, sitting on the porch railing with her feet hanging down, and every ounce of fight BJ thought he had left flees from him so fast he can’t breathe for a second.

“Is this it, then?” She asks in the quietest voice BJ has ever heard. She kicks her feet, and BJ watches leaves flutter off of the bush that Erin grazes with her sneakers. “Are you leaving?”

“I don’t know,” and he falls into the rocking chair Hawk had claimed the night before. “It’s the beginning of the end.”

“No kidding.”

There’s a crash and a yell and then Hawkeye scurries out to the porch, one hand still protecting his head. “Hope you didn’t like those glasses from last night.”

“She threw one at you?” And BJ’s on his feet, energy suddenly zipping through his spine. “What the-“

“Beej, relax.” Hawk puts his hand on BJ’s chest, shoves him so he falls back onto the chair. “It’s not like I didn’t have it coming.” He glances at Erin, and BJ sees the way his hands flex and relax and flex again. He stays silent but hopes against everything that’s happened. Hawkeye steps forward and tweaks the end of Erin’s braid, a gesture so old BJ can’t actually remember when Hawkeye first did it, but it’s the response that matters, and when Erin flicks her head, something in BJ’s chest loosens just a little.

“Hi, Hawkeye.”

“Hi, Erin.” And he sits next to her on the porch railing, his feet sitting squarely on the bush, his shoulder bumping hers. “Your dad’s my best friend.”

“I know.”

“And I love him.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t know what’s going to happen, but even if this ends with Beej and I never talking again, you can still call me long distance and run up their phone bill.”

Erin’s brow wrinkles, and BJ holds his breath. He knows that look, and it can be dangerous under certain circumstances. It’s the look Erin used at four before throwing buckets of water through the screen door, the look she used at ten before tying her brothers to a tree in the backyard, the look she used at sixteen before she completely disobeyed and stayed out all night. But it’s also the look before she does something wonderful. It was the look that won her the spelling bee, the look before she walked into her college interview, the look she’d had right before she’d admitted she was gay, but BJ can’t dare to consider what it means now in this situation where Peg’s breaking of things can still be heard inside the house. 

“I don’t want you to stop talking,” she finally says, and BJ, again, is astounded by the abilities of his baby girl to be an astonishingly amazing full-grown woman. “I just-you kind of fucked things up showing up like you did.” BJ almost interjects to remind her about her language, how polite people don’t talk that way. A crash from inside the house and a chuckle from Hawkeye make him pause.

“Erin, my lovely little lady, I am, as I’m sure your dad has told you, the ultimate and true king of fucking up and being fucked up and fucking over and under and through and through. It’s a gift, completely natural, and I have no choice but to do with it what I can.” Hawkeye grins crookedly, and BJ watches history flash behind his eyes. “The first day I met your dad, we got stinking drunk.”

“You don’t say,” Erin’s smile is wry, and BJ can’t help but chuckle. The stories she’s heard, he thinks, make her well aware of how they passed time in Korea. Gin and gin and occasionally beer, and sometimes even whiskey, if the Colonel was up to sharing his stash.

“I’m not talking stinking drunk like you crazy college kids and your lite beers. I’m talking a still, a full working still, with bells and whistles and knobs and valves. Do you know how close we came to going blind?”

“Probably as close as you came to ruining your livers.”

“Probably. But that first day, that was a masterpiece of stupidity and drunkedness and all out desperation. I’d just had a friend leave,” and BJ doesn’t miss the way Hawkeye’s shoulder jerks at the passing mention of Trapper. Trapper never wrote. Trapper never called. And once Trapper found out about how Hawkeye ended the war, he stayed as clear as his guilty conscience would let him, sending Christmas cards and pictures of children and asking after business in Crabapple Cove. BJ has decided that if he ever meets Trapper, he will punch him in the mouth, and then in the stomach, and then stomp on his toes. And then, perhaps, if he’s feeling generous, he will only rub the tiniest bit of salt into the split lip he knows he’s capable of bestowing on the coward.

“And your dad,” Hawkeye continues and BJ pulls away from thoughts of Trapper John, who is probably a perfectly nice man, just terrible with personal issues, and BJ hates to think how much they have in common. “He was missing you and your mom, and we got stinking, falling down, ass over teakettle drunk. And then we drove a Jeep. It was the only time in my life an Army Jeep made a comfortable ride. Of course, I couldn’t feel my ass, or my fingers, or my toes, or my knees, or my hips.”

Erin is quiet for a good long while. BJ watches her stare at the yard and at the sky, glance at Hawkeye and even over her shoulder at him, face unreadable but for the crease between her eyebrows. Finally, after an age, she turns on the railing and puts her feet on the porch. “I can’t find your point,” she says to Hawkeye, in a tone that asks for more explanation, more honesty, more of something she’s never really had from the people who raised her, BJ thinks, and cringes inside.

“My point, Erin, my lovely little lady, is that your dad left for Korea missing you and your mom, and he came back from Korea to you and your mom, and whatever his reasons or motivations or ridiculous personal ideas of cultural expectations, you are not to ever be allowed to think that your father loves you out of mere obligation.”

“I’ve never thought that.” She’s telling the truth, BJ knows, and the tightness in his chest loosens completely. Peg’s love he can handle losing, her respect and her friendship a casualty to which he can make adjustments. But his baby girl, his favorite daughter, his secretly favorite child, if she’d turned and left him on that porch without a word, without a look, he knows he would have died.

“You’ve been a good dad.” And BJ feels tears well up in his eyes, but he swallows and blinks and just nods, leaves his voice tucked away because he doesn’t want it to break. “And I think you were a good husband. I’m probably not the best judge, considering, but you took care of Mom and always tried to respect her, and I can’t promise I won’t be mad at you tomorrow, but I won’t be mad at you right now.”

BJ’s on his feet and hugging her close, kissing the top of her head and letting a few tears fall into her hair. If it’s the only blessing he ever gets from anyone for the rest of his life, it’s more than good enough for him. “You are a wonderful, brilliant woman. And if anyone ever tries to tell you differently, knock them down and keep moving.”

“I will, Dad,” and Erin’s hugging him back just as tight, not crying, but close, and BJ imagines all the crying will come later, when everything wraps up and ends, and he hopes he’s near enough that she can call and yell at him if that’s what it takes to help her.

There’s another crash, and then footsteps vibrating through the house. BJ pulls away from Erin, tweaks her nose, and goes for the door. Hawkeye’s hand on his arm stops him only long enough to give the bravest smile he can muster. “If I don’t get in there now, she may cut up all my clothes.” Hawkeye nods and steps back, and the last thing BJ sees as he latches the front door is Erin nudging Hawkeye’s shoulder, eyes on the ground, but a determination to understand on her face.

“Peg?” BJ half-yells down the hall, stepping around shattered picture frames and bits of wedding china. He finds Peg in the bedroom, back to the door, shoulders shaking as she cries into a hand towel. BJ’s heart lurches, but he stays in the doorway. “Peg,” he says quietly, trying to keep his voice neutral. He watches her shoulders hunch, listens to her breath catch and wonders if she’ll throw something before he can duck.

“What am I going to do?” She asks to the towel, and BJ takes the chance of stepping into the room. “I’m a housewife. I’m a mother. That’s all I’ve ever been. It’s all I was supposed to be. I liked it.” She looks up at BJ, mascara running down her face, lipstick smudged on one side and fear in her eyes. “I’m a housewife,” she says, voice trembling, “and you can’t stay.”

“I know,” BJ says and sits on the bed. He scratches his neck and combs at his mustache and watches her from the corner of his eye. “We’ll make something work, Peg. We’ll find something-“

“Like what? I don’t have anything useful, BJ. I’m too old to start having a job. Who would hire me with no experience? I can’t even type.” And she’s crying again, more quietly, but very intense. BJ puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezes gently, pretends like it’s not painful when she shrugs it away. “I want answers, BJ. You’re supposed to have answers.”

“I don’t have any for this, Peg. I’m sorry.” He watches her stand and march to her vanity, the way she settles her skirt around the stool recalls so many nights and mornings that they feel like on ongoing memory. “But you’re smart. You’re capable. You raised brilliant children.”

“Oh, shut up, BJ!” She slams down her brush, picks it up again, slams it down again. “I don’t want placating!”

“It certainly didn’t bother you yesterday,” is out before he can stop it. BJ swallows hard, bites his lip, watches Peg’s hand shake as she brushes her hair in slow, careful strokes.

“And I’m not the one who made the option obsolete.” Her voice is cold and smooth, like she’s suddenly not affected at all, but BJ can see her crying in the mirror.

“So I should have kept lying? You wanted to be lied to?”

“I wanted to be safe.”

“So did I.”

“And you don’t get that here?” She puts down the brush, plucks a tissue from the box and starts wiping at her eyes. It’s a side BJ’s never seen before, this impersonal creature with no emotion in her voice. He wonders how long she’s prepared for this, wonders if she practiced in the mirror while he was working or visiting Hawkeye.

“I did, Peg. The whole time I was in Korea-“

“The whole time you were with him, you mean.”

“No, I don’t mean,” and BJ gives up on his temper, decides to let it fly as it pleases. “Ronald McKinley,” he says in a low, dark voice he doesn’t recognize. He watches Peg’s hands still in the mirror, watches her blanch, watches her blink.

“I don’t know-“

“You’re not the only one who got a letter.” She blanches further, but there’s no victory in BJ’s mind. There’s nothing in his head but anger and resentment and exhaustion. “And I knew what I was doing was wrong, so I burned the letter and decided that since we’d both screwed up there was no reason to talk about it.”

“So why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut?” She’s defensive, trying to gain back her suddenly lost ground, but BJ knows he has her, knows all he needs is one final press forward and they’ll be done with all of this. 

“Because you told me about Hawkeye’s letter, and I would have still left Ronald McKinley out of it, but since you’re so damned determined to play the wounded, pure woman-“

“You’ve gotten mean, BJ.”

BJ pauses at that, looks down at the carpet and at his hands and presses his fingertips against his eyebrows, hoping to forestall the headache he can feel rapidly approaching. He sighs and stands, positions himself behind Peg’s shoulders so that she can see him in the mirror. “I’ve gotten old, Peg.” He walks to the closet, reaches to the top shelf, pulls down the largest suitcase. “We both have, but you’ve managed to hold onto everything better. I just can’t do it anymore, not now that it’s out. It’d be a disservice.” BJ opens his dresser, gathers his worn-out T-shirts and perfectly folded jeans, places them into the suitcase in even piles. He tucks his socks into the bend of his left elbow and throws them all into the suitcase haphazardly. Underwear next, and then his shoes by the bed, before walking into the closet and taking down his dress shirts and his work slacks, pulling his garment bag from the very back of the closet rod before shutting the door firmly and laying out everything on the bed.

“Where are you going?” Peg’s voice is miniscule, carrying across to him solely by accident, BJ thinks.

“I can’t stay here.”

“But-“

“You said it yourself, Peg. You said I can’t stay. And you’re right.”

“We could-“

“We can’t.” BJ supposes that modern couples, those who live together before they marry, those who talk about discussing their feelings and being open with one another, those that come into his office and smile and laugh and joke as he gives out information on birth control and condoms and all those things that were never spoken of when he was their age, he supposes that their separations take longer, maybe days, maybe weeks. He’s grateful, with a sudden hard force, that he and Peg don’t have that, that the worst can be over with cut off sentences and the proper set to his mouth.

“BJ,” and she has never, ever, called him Beej. Not in their entire life together, and it hits BJ between the ribs that the only person who ever has, the person who started it off as a nickname, is Hawkeye.

“Peg,” he says and kisses her cheek before snapping the closures on the suitcase. “I’m going to stay in the city somewhere, probably close to work. I’ll call when I have a hotel.”

She has tears in her eyes and anger in the line of her jaw. She turns away and walks into the master bathroom, slamming closed the door without a word. BJ turns in place slowly, taking in the bedroom, checking to see if he needs anything else. He takes his book from the bedside table and turns over a few of the things on Peg’s vanity. Her comb, her brush, the light pink lipstick she’s worn for more years than he can count. He places it all back in line, hefts the suitcase off the bed and makes his way down the hall. There’s a picture on the wall of the kids from the year before. BJ knows there’s a spare picture in a drawer in the kitchen. Peg’s always been fanatical about having a back up. He takes the picture from the wall, tucks it under his arm, and walks out the door.

Hawkeye stands at the edge of the porch, head down, back straight against one of the support posts. Erin’s on the railing, feet dangling on either side. There’s a calm air between them that makes BJ take a deep breath, like the lack of tension makes the air cleaner than it was in the bedroom. Erin sees his suitcase, raises her eyebrows, reminds BJ of the way Peg would question things silently and the way he wouldn’t answer at times. Except Erin, his darling girl, is standing and putting her hands on her hips. Erin, his wonderful child, doesn’t know how to avoid a situation. BJ thinks that, perhaps, it’s something she’s learned from Hawkeye, and he’s ridiculously grateful in that moment that she learned it from somewhere.

“You’re leaving?”

BJ puts the suitcase on the ground, rotates his shoulder, looks at Hawkeye and then back to Erin. “It’s for the best.”

“Yeah,” Erin nods, pushes her hair out of her eyes, steps forward and hugs BJ with a fierceness she’s never had. “Mom?”

“She’s in our bathroom crying.”

“I’ll take care of her.” And BJ knows she will, with the same fierceness with which she’s hugging him now. “And the boys?”

“I’ll call them when I get into the city and take them to dinner. Your mom shouldn’t have to tell them.”

Erin pulls away and reaches for the door, she pauses, turns, and hugs Hawkeye. BJ watches Hawkeye hug her back, watches the way his face twists and his neck tightens. Watches every last regret and ounce of blame work its way across Hawkeye’s face. He’ll have to do something about that. They’ve had enough regret. Erin lets go of Hawkeye, goes back to the door, smiles at BJ with more sincerity than he’d been expecting.

“Love you, Dad.” 

And god, but she means it. BJ’s sure, and if he could, he’d turn everything around, put it back like it was, and leave her as the most brilliant daughter and of a perfect family, but he can’t take it back, and he can’t turn around, so he kisses her head and whispers his love and steps off the porch with Hawkeye at his shoulder. He pauses at the side of Hawkeye’s rental car and squints against the sun at the silhouette of Erin on the porch. “I’ll call when I get to a hotel, give you a number, in case you need me.” 

She raises a hand, and he raises one back, and then he throws his suitcase into the backseat before climbing into the passenger seat. He doesn’t stop looking back until Hawkeye’s turned the corner at the end of the street, and then there’s nothing of interest to see. BJ imagines Erin walking into the house and down the hall, sees her opening the door to the room where her parents used to sleep, sees her walking to the bathroom door, knocking once, and from there he can’t imagine exactly what she’ll find; doesn’t want to imagine the possibilities of what Peg will say. Hopes, and hates himself for it, that she rails against him to Erin long enough that he can talk to the boys first, that he can give them the basic facts before Peg has a chance to forget her veneer of politeness and grace and take her rightful justice by reaching the boys first.

“Beej?” Hawkeye’s tone is meant to bring BJ back into the car and out of his head, meant to pull him forward and keep him there, the same it did in Korea when he started going a little crazy around the edges after his seventh or eighth martini. 

“I’m here,” he says and reaches across the middle of the seat for the hand Hawkeye has resting on the upholstery. He curls their fingers together like he had last night, studies the way Hawk’s fingers slant slightly to the side when they’re held, gives the hand a squeeze because he knows Hawk will squeeze back, and when he gets that squeeze, he relaxes just barely, comes off the edge of the high windy place in his mind and settles fully into the car, fully into his life, fully into the world for the first time in twenty-odd years.


	4. Chapter 4

**Epilogue:**

Over the years, they become old brittle men. After the necessary stopping in the city, after three weeks in the hotel as BJ figured finances and put in his final weeks at the practice, he moves out to Crabapple Cove, to a two bedroom wood house with a small yard and Hawkeye in the kitchen every morning, humming under his breath and making scalding strong coffee.

The boys take it in stages, mumbling and looking away at first, distantly polite at second. When they come to visit, they sit awkwardly in Hawkeye’s dining room chairs, sip tensely at their beers, and try to make conversation without making eye contact. Erin rolls her eyes, calls them idiots, hugs Hawkeye like there’s nothing different in the world and moves out herself after finishing her masters and PHD.  
“Honey-“

“I didn’t do it for you, Dad,” Erin says in that quick, dissertation-defense way she never loses. “I did it for me. I love Mom, but I think we broke her brain when we both decided to come out in the same twenty-four hours.”

BJ’s ready to defend his “coming out”, as she puts it, ready to explain, but Hawkeye’s next to him, arm over his shoulder, laughing uproariously, and BJ thinks it’s cheating; Hawkeye’s laugh makes it impossible for BJ to stay on point.

When Erin brings Mona over for dinner, BJ feels his heart swell. Erin’s halfway into a heated argument with Hawkeye when Mona laughs, and BJ watches Erin forget her topic the same way he always does.  
It’s not always easy; there are questions and looks, the occasional patient who mysteriously changes doctors without lodging a complaint, the way the boys don’t bring their wives the first few times they visit after the weddings where Hawkeye doesn’t receive an invitation. It takes Peg years to stop calling every week, asking innocuous questions in a tense, hard voice before hanging up abruptly and starting over the next Saturday. Hawkeye swears he’ll answer the phone one day and tell her off, but he never does. Just glares when it rings late in the day every week and walks into the backyard.

At one point, the boys try to sit down and say what’s on their mind, but Jack slips up and says the word, “queer”, and Hawkeye has him hefted by the collar and thrown out of the house before he gets any further. Richard is smart enough to just get up and leave. BJ doesn’t see his grandchildren for the first six years of their lives, except in pictures that Erin brings back from her visits to California, always without Mona, who stays over with BJ and Hawkeye and tries not to look sad. BJ tries to explain that it’s not her, that she’s lovely, that she and Erin are wonderful. Mona just shakes her head.

“I know it’s you,” she says with a smile that’s almost a grimace. “Erin told me a long time ago, and I don’t mind staying here, actually. Peg, well, the proper term is passive-aggressive, but I have a few more colorful descriptors.” And the smile turns into a grimace as she takes a long swallow of her drink. “She’s a very nice woman in a lot of ways, but the 1950s had a way of really ruining women.”  
“The 1950s made them just fine,” Hawkeye says as he swirls his martini glass. “Time moving forward is what ruined them. It’s a hard adjustment.” BJ, without looking, thwaps him on the back of the head. Hawkeye just grins, and Mona smiles around another sip of her drink. 

“Whatever the cause, she’s never forgiven you.”

BJ shrugs, sips his own drink, grimaces at the watered-down taste. “I’ve never expected her to. It’s not part of the deal.”

“There’s a deal?”

Hawkeye scoffs. “The Magna Carta had less clauses and rules.”

Mona laughs, toasts Peg with pure irony and finishes her drink.

So they live in Crabapple Cove and see patients and have dinner with Erin and occasionally see the grandchildren after the six-year freeze out, and their bones get creaky and their eyes start to go and every night they fall asleep, Hawkeye’s arm around BJ’s stomach, and every morning they wake up and every day they talk and laugh and move forward through everything they didn’t say and didn’t do for years upon years. And every day, BJ feels a little lighter and brighter and better about everything. The calls from Peg dry up, the visits with the grandchildren increase, and no matter what, every time she goes home just down the road, Erin kisses his cheek, gives him a hug, and says goodnight. And then she does the same to Hawkeye. And BJ knows that no matter the state of the world, no matter the mixed feelings from his sons, Erin understands and accepts and loves, and it brings back his return from Korea, and the way Erin, even while shy, still allowed him to hold her, allowed him to smell her hair and touch her tiny hands, allowed him to fumble and fall and learn to be a parent two years too late, allowed him, all those years later, to fumble and fall and learn to be himself twenty-odd years after, and he hugs her tight and kisses her cheek, and tells her to sleep well, and the world is as it should be. The world is the best BJ’s ever had it.


End file.
